Kellogg's out of Venezuela due to its 'economic and social deterioration'

"The current economic and social deterioration in the country has prompted the company to discontinue operations".

Investors looking to buy Venezuela's new cryptocurrency may want to head to a little-known Moscow bank whose biggest shareholders are President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government and two state-controlled Russian companies under USA sanctions.

The Battle Creek, Michigan-based company had already changed the way it counted results from that operation at the end of 2016. "I've taken the decision to deliver the company to the workers in order that they can continue producing for the people", Maduro said.

USA -based cereal maker Kellogg Co K.N on Tuesday pulled out of Venezuela due to the country's deep economic crisis, and an angry President Nicolas Maduro said its units would be taken over and given to workers. Previously, workers had said that they had been prevented from entering the plant in the central city of Maracay on Tuesday.

Other multinational companies that have given up on the OPEC country, abandoning assets or selling them cheap, include Clorox CLX.N , Kimberly-Clark KMB.N , General Mills GIS.N , General Motors GM.N and Harvest Natural Resources. Notably, Evrofinance's biggest shareholders are two state-controlled Russian banks - sanctioned after Russia's annexation of Crimea - and Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, as the country's government purchased a 49% stake in 2011. Despite the problems, Maduro is expected to win re-election on Sunday in a vote the main opposition coalition says is a sham.

The ensuing story finds Oliver delving into the South American country's dire economic situation, focusing in particular on the leadership under which said crisis-caused in large part by Venezuela's economic dependence on oil, prices of which fell precipitously beginning in 2014-has come about.

Socialist Maduro has taken over the factories of some companies that have left the country. It said it hoped to return to Venezuela in the future and warned against sales of its brands "without the expressed authorization of the Kellogg Company".

At least one other US company had already threatened legal proceedings against the country when Venezuela took control of a plant once belonging to Kimberly-Clark and began making personal hygiene products.